Miracles!

July 11, 2011

Miracles!

Everyone who has told me that they saw the most miracles in the end of their mission is right. Maybe it´s because I´m looking (and praying) more for them. But I really hope my companion (who is just starting) realizes how incredible all of this is.

We did have one sad point. A family we were teaching decided they didn´t want to listen any more. They´re always sad when the missionaries leave and they have family members that got baptized in the Jehova´s Witnesses and it ripped the family apart. It´s hard when people can´t understand the beauty of the gospel and how important it really is for the family, but we´ve planted a seed there and hopefully they´ll remember us some day and go back to church.

This week we found a bunch of new investigators and a lot went to church. One very special little investigator is the daughter of a family that´s inactive right now. When we gave them the commitment to go to church she said "YES" before anybody else and they all went!

When we went by after to congratulate them she got really mad at her mom and said, "You told me I was going to get baptized when I was 8!  Now I´m 9 and I´m still not baptized! When am I going to get baptized???" so we gave her a baptismal date and her dad will prepare to baptize her on August 6th. I won´t be here, but I´m still very happy.

I also heard that yesterday Martina Helmer was baptized (the daughter of the inactive family in La Falda) and that her dad was able to stop smoking and go to church and baptize her. That made me very, VERY happy.

A family in this ward has been giving us a lot of references lately (because they think we work hard, tricked them! just kidding...) and so we´ve been teaching a lot of great, golden people.

Also, a man showed up to the church in Barrio Hospital yesterday and said that he wants to change his life and get baptized... and he lives in our area. We´re going to see him tomorrow and he will hopefully get baptized next week.

We went on divisions with two hermanas in the ward to do visiting teaching, look up inactive people, and teach some lessons, and they LOVED it and really inspired the other ladies to do their visits and coordinate divisions with us. This week we taught 10 lessons with members present (the weekly goal for the mission).

We taught the family Carrillo, a part-member/inactive family we´ve been seeing, and they´re going through economic problems. We taught the law of tithing and they not only accepted it, they LOVED it.  They´re going to stop working on Sundays and go to church. The 9-year-old grandson read all of the pamphlets we´ve left and keeps bugging us for his own Book of Mormon, so we´re going to give him the one that´s comic-style.

This week was incredible. I´m excited to see what miracles are in store for us this week, but next week´s email will probably be lame, so you´ll have to ask me about it when I get home.

I´m running hard to the finish! If we keep seeing these miracles, it will be easy!

I love you all!

Hermana LaPray

Still here....

            In case anyone was wondering, yes, I´m still here in Argentina... Did you know that "floresta" (my area) means "forest"? It´s weird, because there are no forests here... not even a lot more trees than usual.  Maybe they mean "dirt forest" because there is a lot more dirt than usual...

Well, the exciting news for this week is that we might have 2 unplanned baptisms. A guy contacted us in the street the other day asking us about church and how it can help his life and stuff so we´re going to teach him today and baptize him soon. He seemed really interested and is already reading stuff we gave him, even though we haven´t even had a formal lesson yet. Another is a girl named Sofia who has been to church before, but her dad would never let her get baptized (he´s kind of a crazy guy who has questions that don´t really matter) but we met him and asked him and he said that she could get baptized if she really wants to, and not because she´s just doing it for some boy. Good news: my companion and I aren´t boys! We´re hermanas and she´s going to get baptized soon... she just needs a baptismal date :)

            Other than that, our heater blew up this morning. It somehow turned off last night and when I re-lit it this morning it made kind of a mini-explosion and burnt my fingers. And then it went out again an hour later. So I re-lit it more carefully and was in the other room by the time it exploded. l like being in Argentina, but I´m excited for my central heating unit that will never singe my fingernails...

We might be doing divisions again this week with the hermanas from Pringles, so next week we´ll let you know how that goes. And we´re doing divisions with some hermanas from the ward, so we might be doing divisions while on divisions. Makes your head hurt, huh? And I think in english divisions are called splits. Something like that. I don´t speak missionary english, sorry. Someone can teach me when I get home.

So I hope everyone has had a good week. Happy 4th of July! I hear that´s a holiday or something... we´re just getting ready for 9 de julio down here. You know, Independence Day.

And I have officially decided to not write any more letters. I´ll probably get home before any letters I might write... I think the last letter I wrote was to Dan 2 weeks ago so if you´re not Dan and you haven´t gotten a letter, you´re not going to get one! But I still love you and I will email you when I get home :) Thank you for the letters, they really are appreciated. Even though I´m an ungrateful little brat and I won´t write you back.

Times up! Hasta luego!

Hna. LaPray